SARAH JESSICA PARKER QUOTES

Work was never about wanting fame or money. I never thought about that. I loved getting the job, going to rehearsal, playing someone else, hanging around with a bunch of actors. I needed that, the way you need water.

SARAH JESSICA PARKER, Sam Magazine, 2005

I'm always nervous before a job! I always think I'm going to be fired, I always think I can't do it. I always think I'm going to disappoint somebody, myself included.

SARAH JESSICA PARKER, Cinema Confidential News, Mar. 8, 2006

The city was amazing. It was uniquely easy collaboration, I think. When we first started shooting in the city in '97, there weren't an enormous amount of shows shooting, "Law and Order" and all of Dick Wolf's shows, and weren't as many then were there. And "Sopranos" wasn't shooting yet. And "Oz" existed, but it was on a sound stage. So we were fairly -- we felt rather autonomous in the city because we were shooting it in a way that the city hadn't been shot, you know, sparkly and pretty and -- the city was so helpful and really made -- I mean, the city was always an integral part, and I have called it "the fifth lady" for a long time because this particular city at that particular time is the story we were telling. It couldn't have been shot in Detroit at that time. This was the story we were telling. Ask I think people in New York really felt -- they became very proprietary about the show and really made it easy for us.

SARAH JESSICA PARKER, Larry King Live, Feb. 25, 2004

The thing is, it was a very hard decision to end the show and the reason I ended it was because I felt that I was extremely happy there and I would have stayed there forever. I was very comfortable, very satisfied creatively and I was obviously well paid and I thought those were the very reasons, among other reasons, that I should not stay. I felt it was really incumbent upon me at this time in my life to do something new and challenging and put myself in unfamiliar environment with people I didn't know and actors who would set a different standard for me.

SARAH JESSICA PARKER, BBC interview, Dec. 13, 2005

The arts were a big part of my childhood. We went to the theatre and opera a lot as a family. We were not at all wealthy, but it was at a time when the arts were publicly funded and there were free tickets available. For someone like myself who wasn't that academically inclined, it was a great escape.

SARAH JESSICA PARKER, FemaleFirst interview, Dec. 13, 2005

With each of the men I dated, everything ran its natural course, whether it worked out or not. I never felt burnt by any of them. I don’t feel resentful. I don’t want those years back. I’m not one of those women who thinks men are bastards. I love men: straight men, gay men. I’ve always had men close to me, from the time I was a child.

SARAH JESSICA PARKER, Sam Magazine, 2005

I think it's incumbent upon me to try to be smart and make good choices and work with good people and work my ass off when I'm working with good people and I have to let everyone have their opinion afterwards. But this is what happens. You make a movie or you're on a show and then you have this experience and everyone tells you what you did. They tell you what you did. That's allowed. That's the experience of being human and subjectivity. That's it. We can only do what we'll do, and I can only do the best I can do.

SARAH JESSICA PARKER, Dark Horizons interview, Dec. 8, 2005

I think women of a certain generation, mine in particular, feel like we can have it all because that's what we were fed. It's like, we reap the benefits of the feminist movement - they did all the legwork and now we're going to try to be parents and successful business people and great wives and good friends and take a cooking class and blah, blah, blah...

SARAH JESSICA PARKER, BBC interview, Dec. 13, 2005

A big part of not having money as a kid isn’t that you haven’t the stuff you want. It isn’t being without heat, or the phone and electric company sending cut-off notices. It’s lying in bed late at night worrying. You feel ashamed that your family is so radically different. Other families had stable lives and nice homes they could invite their friends to visit. Those things didn’t happen in our family. So it was a little bit like embarrassment on top of embarrassment. But the worst is that, even more than food and shelter, you worried about your parents’ anxiety, which was palpable in the house. It sounds crazy, but I’m grateful for all that now. It gave me a really good work ethic and sympathy for the majority of people who aren’t rich. I feel in touch with their lives.

SARAH JESSICA PARKER, Sam Magazine, 2005

You know, I feel like people in this country who feel really strongly about a man and a woman being the only -- the sole sort of gatekeeper of marriage should also support people staying together. I mean, a lot of heterosexual couples don't stay together, and I think that's as upsetting as two people who are really committed and loving and have been monogamous for many years wanting to ... be married and have -- share some of the same rights that this country is so uniquely qualified to give people.

SARAH JESSICA PARKER, Larry King Live, Feb. 25, 2004

Shopping is my cardio.

SARAH JESSICA PARKER, as Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City

I like my money right where I can see it: Hanging in my closet.

SARAH JESSICA PARKER, as Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City

Matthew has a nice eye [for fashion]. He’s the last person I know who still wears a tie.

SARAH JESSICA PARKER, Harper's Bazaar, Feb. 4, 2009

I've always been an actor. That's my job — I can be anything you want me to be.

SARAH JESSICA PARKER, Allure Magazine, Feb. 2008

I think the things that are more painful to me are not the intrusion of paparazzi, it's the lack of civility that I find more intimidating and far more painful an experience. It's the lack of critical thinking. It's the endless snarky, mean way we talk about each other, we approach each other. The anonymity of being cruel, the delight in tearing people down. The tabloid era that we find ourselves in is a cultural boneyard, and that is painful to me.

SARAH JESSICA PARKER, Katie Couric interview, Sep. 5, 2011

I never wanted to be a celebrity; I never wanted to be famous. And in my daily life, I work really hard to not trade on it in any way. I am so desperately worried about anybody saying, "She cut in line," or "She took our table," or "She doesn't do her own grocery shopping." It's not like it's hard to be decent and respectful and well behaved. I do wait in line, and I do take the subway, and I do my own grocery shopping, and I do take the kids to school. But it almost doesn't matter to a certain segment of the populace.

SARAH JESSICA PARKER, interview, Nov. 3, 2011

I remember when I came home from the hospital after having my son, I wore a Narciso Rodriguez black coat. Then, I was using this fragrance that I had created. I walk by that coat, and it still smells like that fragrance. It takes you right there.

SARAH JESSICA PARKER, Harper's Bazaar, Feb. 4, 2009

I never was Carrie Bradshaw, but imagine how great it was to be told, "You are obligated to kiss all these men, to dress like that, and to carry on like that!" They were great guys, too.

SARAH JESSICA PARKER, interview, Nov. 3, 2011